Jerry Stahl on writing, Mengele and muttering at 3 a.m.

 

Jerry Stahl, author of the memoir "Permanent Midnight," is known for his rendering of the darkest corners of a drug-fueled spiral — in his case, this included writing scripts for the alien-on-the-couch TV show "Alf." But his world is more serene now: He spoke to Jacket Copy on the balcony of his hilltop home, the quiet interrupted only by his adopted dog barking at the occasional too-close bird.

Recently, he's been on tour to promote his new book, "Pain Killers." He's also contributed to the L.A. Times serial novel "Money Walks" and will appear at the L.A. Times Festival of Books on Sunday, April 26.

In "Pain Killers," Stahl's dope-prone private eye Manny Rubert from "Plainclothes Naked" is sent to San Quentin by a powerful manipulator named Zell — Stahl growls that that any resemblance to a media mogul is intended. In the book, Manny's not posing as an inmate but as a drug counselor, trying to find out whether a ninetysomething inmate is, in fact, Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele. 

Jacket Copy: Of all the Nazi criminals, why Mengele?

Stahl: I was sort of fueled by this free-floating rage at the time, the Bush years, all the stuff being done in our name — however that might sound now in the pre-disappointment Obama years. I stumbled on the fact that much of the really heinous scientific experiments were paid for by American families like the Rockefellers, for example. It was that same sort of click of recognition where you know, here we are living in this country with this one myth about who and what we are, when the reality is this other thing. So there was that kind of parallel; however conscious or unconscious, it was a rage-fueled book. A rage-fueled decision to write.
   
It was fueled by the fact that this is what America was, which was mortifying to contemplate. Similarly, we were living in a time when the stuff that was being done in our name was also just disgusting.

JC: Do you really think that the extent to which he did these horrifying things America has continued in that vein? Do you think we’re that bad?

Stahl: I don’t think you can – it’s not about the one-downs-manship of they chopped off three fingers, we chopped off a hangnail. But there’s no doubt that we’ve been doing prison experiments on African Americans and anyone unfortunate enough to be in there for centuries in this country. It’s not just Tuskegee; there’s plenty of other examples. I wrote something about this a couple of years ago. They have evidence of chemical companies testing pesticides in the houses of impoverished families in the housing units of some ghetto somewhere and paying off the mothers to see what the physical reaction would be for the children. There was a big lawsuit. Nobody’s hands are clean. This superiority that we kind of strut around with as America – is not necessarily earned. And that’s something I wanted to pursue in the book.

JC: How does using a detective allow you to explore that?

Stahl: I wanted a way in, with a guy that was finding out as the reader, and as I, was finding out. There’s a certain kind of classic trope of using Virgil down in the underworld, however pretentious you want to take it, but there is that level. You want a guy to take you through.

It wasn’t I woke up one day and decided I wanted to be Mickey Spillane.

JC: Some writers have a problem putting pressure on their characters, putting their characters in difficult situations —

Stahl: They do?

JC: Yeah.

Stahl: Who?

JC: Maybe it’s a graduate school thing.

Stahl: I never heard that. Tell me. Is that an issue? Like they’re little children?

JC: Like you become fond of them and you don’t want to put them in harm’s way. ...

Stahl: Oh, it’s like having a baby and pushing it in front of traffic.

JC: Yeah. It seems like you take a bit of sadistic pleasure — you put Manny in horrible situation after horrible situation.

Stahl: I don’t really ascribe to the parental view of authorship, that these characters are like my little children. It’s more about trying to describe certain, ah, emotional and adrenal states of mind. And not really about putting preschool between two hard covers. I like that idea; it just never even occurred to me. I don’t think I’m the only one who writes characters who are dire – I mean, life’s pretty dire.

JC: You went to Columbia.

Stahl: Don’t throw that in my face.

What happened at Columbia — after the jump.

In books: Huston, Mitchell, Bialosky and money keeps walking

Allegra Huston, the daughter of Ricki Soma, grew up a Huston -- as in director John and actress Angelica. When Ricki died in a car wreck, 4-year-old Allegra went to live with the Huston clan. At 12, she learned that her biological father was someone else entirely; years later, she "decided to write this magazine piece about my two fathers and how lucky I felt to have them both." That piece was the beginnings of "Love Child," the story of an unusual childhood and fragmentary history. She tells the L.A. Times:

I think you have to stand for something, and what I wanted to stand for was the possibility of making a fractured whole, bringing happiness out of sadness and the blessings and the gifts in loss and tragedy -- to sort of hold up the candle for what can be if you keep your heart open and rise above resentment and tragedies and pull the pieces together.

Other pieces are coming together in the L.A. Times serial novel, "Money Walks." Written collaboratively by L.A.-based fiction writers, all of whom will appear at the L.A. Times Festival of Books, "Money Walks" follows the mystery of disappearing money and the intersecting lives of a reverend, some petty crooks and Bunny, a rich lady with an oxygen tank (so far). Today's chapter is written by Aimee Bender; in it, Bunny does  a lot of clapping.

But she uses both hands -- which would leave no puzzle for translator and zen scholar Stephen Mitchell. He talks to Susan Salter Reynolds on the release of "The Second Book of the Tao." The book, Salter Reynolds writes:

Consists of adaptations from the work of two ancient Chinese scholars: Chuang-tzu, a Laotzu disciple, and Tzu-ssu, Confucius' grandson. Mitchell chose 64 chapters, each including a text and commentary. In his commentaries, Mitchell sets out to emulate the irreverent tone of Chuang-tzu: "If Lao-tzu is a smile," he writes, "Chuang-tzu is a belly-laugh. He's the clown of the Absolute, the apotheosis of incredulity, Coyote among the bodhisattvas."

Asked to elaborate, he says: "I have no pretensions to scholarship. I just love to play with the Taoist masters. For them, nothing is sacred. The best tribute is contradiction."

In Jill Bialosky's powerful new collection of poems, "Intruder," reviewer Bernadette Murphy sees continuity: "She knits throughout this keenly live collection a visceral thread that ties the poet inextricably to her reader." In the opening poem, "Demon Lover," lovers watch snow falling.

It won't end, she said.
Will you stay with me?
I won't leave, she said.
I must go then, said the lover.

There's more online in L.A. Times books.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Finding the mark: 'Money Walks' Parts 4 and 5

In our serial novel "Money Walks," money is missing and a reverend has sought help from a slightly seedy quarter. In Chapters 4 (by Tod Goldberg) and 5 (by Cecil Castellucci), we find their mark: a little old lady with a very nice car and an apparent affection for the Lord.

Don't worry if you miss an installment: All of "Money Walks" is appearing online here. Coming up next week: chapters from Laila Lalami, Aimee Bender, Marisa Silver and Susan Straight.

Each of the authors who is contributing to "Money Walks" will be at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, the weekend-long free celebration of bookishness, April 25-26 at UCLA.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: DanieVDM via Flickr

'Money Walks': $11.39 for a very important cup of coffee, Part 3

"Money Walks," a serial novel by 16 Los Angeles writers who will be appearing at this year's Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, appears in new installments Mondays through Saturdays until April 24. Today's chapter-- our third -- is written by Diana Wagman; it introduces us to the people that the reverend calls upon when all the money starts to go missing. They're bickering.

Rudy's girlfriend, Angie, was sitting with her long legs up on the dining room table, skirt around her waist, portable fan whirring. She was reading John Fante's "Ask the Dust" aloud.

When Rudy told her to shut up, she quoted Arturo Bandini: "When I say Greaser to you, it is not my heart that speaks."

"It's the priest, for chrissakes," he whispered, gesturing at the phone.

Angie works as a barrista, and she's the one who says casually, "People have money. Maybe not a lot. But people always have $11.39 for a very important cup of coffee." But do they? They're having a hard time finding any cold hard cash.

Read the story from the beginning: Chapter 1 by Mary McNamara and Chapter 2 by Seth Greenland.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: Allan Haggett via Flickr

'Money Walks': The L.A. Times fiction serial, Part 2

In Part 1 of "Money Walks," author Mary McNamara introduced us to the Rev. Franco Laguna as he found out that his church's money was gone. But it wasn't just his collection plate that was empty -- the news was beginning to spread that money was disappearing everywhere. In part two, the reverend -- is he a good reverend? -- considers his plight.

As a young boy, Franco had liked all of the Ten Commandments, but his favorite was "Thou shalt not steal." This was because he believed it rendered several of the others redundant.

Thou shalt not murder clearly admonished the ancient Israelites to not steal a life. Thou shalt not commit adultery? This was God saying don't steal a wife. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's oxen? There is a consensus among biblical scholars: Coveting is a gateway to larceny.

Franco kept thinking about this because he didn't want to deal with the dark place toward which he found himself reeling. The money might be gone, but the church work could not stop.

This chapter is by Seth Greenland. Like the other 15 contributing authors, he will be at the L.A. Times Festival of Books, April 25-26 at UCLA. Tickets, which are available from Ticketmaster beginning April 19, are free.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: Seth Mazow via Flickr

'Money Walks': The new L.A. Times fiction serial, Part 1

Today the L.A. Times launches a project in fiction, a multi-contributor serial called "Money Walks." The first installment, written by Mary McNamara, introduces us to a world much like our own, different only in that all the money has disappeared. Or maybe that isn't different at all.

In "Money Walks," each short chapter will be written by a different Los Angeles novelist, including Jerry Stahl, Marissa Silver, Seth Greenland, Denise Hamilton and Aimee Bender. Mary McNamara promises she'll wrap it all up April 24.

That's the eve of the Festival of Books, where you'll be able to see all of our participating authors. Many are on panels, where they'll be taking questions.

If you catch them in the right mood, they might tell you what it's like to be handed the narrative baton, asked to write 600 words and given a deadline of, oh, yesterday. Or how they decided to steer the fortunes of the church of Rev. Franco Laguna and his treasurer Maureen, who has "a quivering sharpness; when she walked, he sometimes thought he could hear the sunlight, the breeze, the atoms of the air scream as they were shorn in two."

It's hard not to hope for the best for them; the reverend, at least, seems so nice:

After a few moments, Franco lifted himself out of his chair and went to sit in the church courtyard. After weeks of rain, the weather had grown suddenly warm and the Victorian boxwood had begun its heady nocturnal bloom.

The money had been slipping away for some time now, he realized, slipping away from everyone, with their credit cards and automated bill-pays, as if it had never existed at all.

But it had. He remembered the damp and crumpled dollar bills he had hoarded as a child, money from the tooth fairy and mowing lawns, from his Confirmation and birthday cards. They had existed, though he could not for the life of him remember what he had used them for.

Installments will continue almost every day between now and April 24; don't miss Chapter 1.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo by Kevin Dooley via Flickr